Wisconsin board votes on pyrolysis plant

By Vince Bond Jr., Crain News Service (WN)

Green Bay, Wisconsin -- The Brown County, Wisconsin, board was expected to vote yesterday on contracting for a supply of waste to a pyrolysis facility being built in Green Bay.

Environmental advocates in Wisconsin aren't happy with the possibility of the plant being built there. The Sierra Club, Incinerator Free Brown County and the Waukesha County Environmental Action League sent comments to local elected officials expressing their concern about the new facility.

The groups said awarding $23 million in taxpayer dollars to the Oneida Seven Generation Corp.'s project wouldn't be wise because pyrolysis technology has never been a commercial success, whether it was in North America, Europe or South America.

Pyrolysis is defined as a thermochemical decomposition of organic material-scrap tyres are often used-at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen.

The pyrolysis plant's opposition said there should be careful oversight anytime public dollars are involved.

“We are concerned that the proposed project will pose undue risks to taxpayers who will be on the hook for financing a risky, unproven technology that has never been successfully deployed anywhere in the United States,” said Will Stahl, conservation chair of the Sierra Club's John Muir Chapter. “Fewer environmental drawbacks and more economic benefits can be derived from viable projects that encourage recycling, develop emissions-free renewable energy, and hold producers responsible for product disposal.”

This report appeared in Waste & Recycling News, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.

From Waste News via Tire Business (A Crain publication)